encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story--a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?

Life of Pi  is part horror story, part fable, with religious overtones and a message. This story about a young boy trapped on a lifeboat with an odd assortment of castaways--a zebra, hyena, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger--is told in a straightforward way.  It is an enjoyable, brisk, nearly believable--yet often gruesome--romp. The first section introduces Pi living in India with his zoo-keeping family. The major portion of the book recounts his (mis)adventures at sea. In the final pages of the book, we find that the author has used this backstory to ask a straightforward question: "Do we need stories and fables to believe in God?" You see, on one hand, it may seem that  Life of Pi  is a grim adventure story about an adolescent shipwreck survivor. However, a boy on a boat with a tiger is not really what this novel is "about" at all. The story ends by steering from magic realism to a post-modern finale--as Yann Martel attempts to wrap up his point.